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Playing with Polaroids

Over Christmas Jamie got me a beautiful old Sun 660 Polaroid Camera, which I have since abused by dragging it with me everywhere, from walks down Sunset Blvd. to flying to the East Coast to visit family. You may roll your eyes and think 'dear lord preserve us from these hipsters.' And you would be right to do so, and I don't care. The truth is I loved Polaroid cameras even as a kid. There's something immensely satisfying about the loud click, and rolling noise of your fresh picture being ejected like a frog tongue from the mouth of your camera.

A lot of people are using the Fujifilm Instax cameras these days. These are really great instant cameras and some of the last ones in existence where the company that created them still supplies their film, and the color and style are more consistent than what you'll get trying to use Polaroids these days. But where's the fun in knowing 100% that your photos are going to come out just like they would if you your iPhone flash and an instagram filter? The challenge of figuring out how to shoot with the outdated Polaroid and the touchy film is part of the fun!

Taking pictures with Polaroids has changed a bit though since I was a kid. First of all, Polaroid itself doesn't actually make film for its cameras anymore. The only source of film that fits these relics of photography is The Impossible Project. The film that Impossible sells is not only steeply priced (at about $25 per roll, hello expired film pack), but also takes a while to develop. Compared to the five or ten minutes the Polaroid film of the early 2000s that I remember, Impossible film takes up to 45 minutes.

It's all a fairly different experience from when I was a kid. The film is finicky, takes a while to develop, and won't really come out right if you don't do everything right. The temperature has to be moderate, you have to shield the photo from light as soon as it comes out, and if the film is expired (whoops, sorry it's so much cheaper), or not stored properly then everything can just come out very blue or green. You can hover over the photos below to see what happened to make them look that way.

Denver was too cold. Sorry Kevin.

This film was expired, but Jamie still looks amazing.

All this being said, I'll keep shooting polaroids. It's a lot of fun, and something I hope to get better at over time, even if it is an outdated art, so is Latin and I wasted two years of high school on that garbage. I'm kidding. Stay in school.